Well, it was nice knowing you - infant internet. Seems now that you have grown up, there are some very nasty problems that we as internet users must learn to deal with rather quickly...

No more can we safely traverse the internet with abandon. We must be aware of what threats are out there and actively protect our own computer systems and data files. No one should open an email attachement from anyone at all unless we have contacted them to see if they actually sent it.

Cryptolocker is just the first shot across the bow. This threat has no remedy once you get infected - so far. If you do get infected with this one, your files are toast... UNLESS you have judiciously backed up your data to an offline storage site - be it an external hard drive which is not permanently connected to your computer, or to a third party online backup service.

This nasty piece of work will even encrypt your data that you save on a network share or a mapped network drive! No connected data is safe!